Tuesday is February 14 and that’s Valentine’s Day. Many are rushing to stores to buy Valentine gifts for their sweethearts. You may forget birthdays or anniversaries. But TV and other public media have plenty of reminders about Valentine’s Day. There’s no excuse to forget.

Showing up without Valentine cards and gifts can be deadly to your relationship!

What your favorite Valentine Gifts?

Valentine flowers are nice. Diamonds and other jewelry are forever. Chocolate is fun. And studies have found that dark chocolate can be good the your heart – in small doses. But, it’s Valentine’s Day, so splurge a little.

As a physician, you don’t actually give your patients Valentine gifts. But the gift of good health is more precious than material gifts. You may not be able to heal a romantic heart ache or a broken heart.

But you treat the literal / physical human heart. So you can help your heart disease patients.

February is also American Heart Month. There’s an epidemic of heart failure. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.

Hopefully you are taking the American Heart Month opportunity to educate your patients on heart disease prevention, treatment and other heart disease info. One of the goals of the HITECH Act and the transition to electronic health records is to educate patients and get them engaged in their own health care.

What’s the Heart Disease cure and medical treatment?

You know about open heart surgery, heart bypass surgery, angioplasty and the like. In some cases heart medication is used. You probably also recommend some of the lifestyle changes that promote heart health and reduce the probability of heart attacks.

Why have you patients go under the surgical knife, when you can offer them a non-surgical, non=invasive heart disease treatment. A treatment that can be done in the office of any medical doctor.

Yes, you do need a diagnosis from a cardiologist for insurance purposes. But after that, you can continue to treat the patient yourself via the ECP cardiovascular machine. This solves any coordination of care issues, since you are no longer turning your patient over to a cardiovascular specialist. That’s one benefit to you.

But ECP machines also give the gift of more revenue for your practice. Reimbursements from Medicare and other insurance payors is greater than your costs. The ECP therapy equipment results in positive cash flow!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

For your heart disease patients there are lots of benefits. Most patients would be grateful for a way to avoid surgery and the long cardiac rehabilitation & recovery time that follows. Perhaps they’ve already had heart bypass surgery and are in fear of a repeat or additional heart surgery.

ECP treatments would be worthy Valentine gifts or marvelous gifts for any occasion.